As the federal government howls over the impending spending cuts that go into effect tomorrow, we learn about some of the appropriations that the sequester will not touch.\u00a0 That right-wing rag The Washington Post<\/em> tells about an airport in my native Oklahoma that gets $150,000 of federal money a year even though it has no planes.\u00a0 There are actually 88 airports like that throughout the country.\u00a0 (This one is over by where my brother lives.\u00a0 I wonder if he has been there to see his federal tax dollars at work.)<\/p>\n From the Washington Post<\/em> article by David A. Fahrenthold:<\/p>\n ARDMORE, Okla. \u2014 Along a country road in southern Oklahoma, there is a place that doesn\u2019t make sense. It is an airport without passengers.<\/p>\n Or, for that matter, planes.<\/p>\n Oklahoma state officials receive hundreds of thousands of federal dollars just for maintaining this rarely used air strip. The Post\u2019s David Fahrenthold went to stand on the runway and talk with the locals about one of the ways congress is giving away tax dollars.<\/p>\n Oklahoma state officials receive hundreds of thousands of federal dollars just for maintaining this rarely used air strip. The Post\u2019s David Fahrenthold went to stand on the runway and talk with the locals about one of the ways congress is giving away tax dollars.<\/p>\n This is Lake Murray State Park Airport, one of the least busy of the nation\u2019s 3,300-plus public airfields. In an entire week here, there might be one landing and one takeoff \u2014 often so pilots can use the bathroom. Or none at all. Visiting pilots are warned to watch out for deer on the runway.<\/p>\n So why is it still open? Mostly, because the U.S. government insists on sending it money.<\/p>\n Every year, Oklahoma is allotted $150,000 in federal funding because of this place, the result of a grant program established 13 years ago, in Congress\u2019s golden age of pork. The same amount goes to hundreds of other tiny airfields across the country \u2014 including more than 80 like this one, with no paying customers and no planes based at the field.<\/p>\n Lake Murray, as it turns out, is an ATM shaped like an airport.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also an example of the kind of spending \u2014 wide-ranging, constituent-pleasing giveaways \u2014 that Washington has struggled to swear off in this time of austerity. Once again, for example, Congress voted to continue giving money to local airports last year. And in Oklahoma, state officials voted to keep the airport open and, therefore, be able to take it.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a direct gift from your congressman and senators,\u201d said Victor Bird, director of the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission, which handles the money the government allots for Lake Murray. \u201cEverybody\u2019s going to get something here, and we\u2019re going to take some.\u201d<\/p>\n For advocates of leaner government, the story of Lake Murray\u2019s airport is particularly galling now, as an $85 billion budget cut nears on Friday. The \u201csequester,\u201d as the cut is known, is what lawmakers call a \u201cdumb cut,\u201d because it doesn\u2019t try to distinguish muscle from fat.<\/p>\n Within the Federal Aviation Administration, for instance, officials say the sequester could result in the closure of air-traffic control towers and long flight delays. But it would not touch the airport program, which has allotted Lake Murray about $1,500 for each of its takeoffs and landings.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy have we not gotten rid of the stupid stuff in the federal government?\u201d said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who highlighted Lake Murray in his annual \u201cWastebook\u201d last year. \u201cBecause every one of these .\u2009.\u2009. stupid or irresponsible projects has a constituency.\u201d<\/p>\n